Abstract: Since the Tang Dynasty,Confucian Temples had become "public sacrificial temples" and prefecture or county schools had been affiliated to Confucian Temples. Records of these schools were entitled as either the "stele of the temple",the "record of the temple",the "record of the school" or the "record of the school in the temple",all of which can be categorized as "records of schools". By examining the historical contexts of "reviving schools" in the Northern Song Dynasty and studying the "records of schools" collected in the Complete Works in the Song Dynasty,this paper reveals a process of shifting the focus from the "temple" toward the "school" in the "records",which was the actual formative process of "records of schools" as a prose genre in the Song Dynasty. During this transformation,WANG An-shi had the intention to criticize and abandon the former conventions theoretically in his "Record of Fanchang County School".

Key words: WANG An-shi, “records of schools”, Confucian Temple, school